


Le Vite

by ScribeofArda



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Domestic Fluff, Even after nine centuries of practice, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Immortal Husbands, Joe and Nicky have a fight, Joe is pissed off at Booker, M/M, Malta, Nicky is tired and a little depressed, Post-Canon, they're not very good at it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:49:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25490416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScribeofArda/pseuds/ScribeofArda
Summary: Nicky breathes out. “What did I miss?” he asks, staring out at the hills. “Why didn’t I see this coming?”After everything, after finding Nile and losing Booker and Andy's new mortality, Joe is pissed off. Nicky is just tired.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 169
Kudos: 1641





	Le Vite

**Author's Note:**

> Welp I wrote this in a solid two days and it somehow jumped from 4k to nearly 8k when I wasn't looking. Neither this or [Stracciatella](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25409914) are the original story that I first started writing for The Old Guard, which is still a wip and still going, and I have yet another idea for another fic that I need to write before I finish the original wip, because apparently this is my life now. The response to my first fic absolutely blew me away, nearly 300 kudos in a day is insane and you're all amazing.
> 
> I am a complete sucker for the ease of Joe and Nicky's relationship, so whilst there is angst and they do fight, they're terrible at it and it doesn't last very long. Content warnings for discussions of Booker's intentions and suicide, though that's a somewhat complicated one with these characters. Nicky is a little depressed, but he's going to be fine.

Joe is pacing.

Nicky sits back in the rickety chair at the table, his hands wrapped around a mug of tea that’s long since gone cold, and watches Joe pace. He walks across from one whitewashed wall to the other over and over again, on a straight line that just misses the ragged sofa and makes sure his back is never fully turned to the front door. With every turn, Nicky watches his foot catch the edge of the rug and flick it up, only for it to be pushed back down with the return journey.

They’re somewhere in the Brecon Beacons, in a small cottage nestled halfway up a hill that belongs to someone Copley knows. He had handed them a map and car keys, and told them to lie low until he smoothed things over with the authorities. Nicky still has that urge simmering a little under his skin to grab Joe’s hand and run together, get far enough away that nobody will find them, but Andy seems to trust Copley now, and he insisted that it would be more trouble to try and get them out of the country than it would to just hide them in a small farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by moorland and sheep.

Andy is out with Nile, patrolling the perimeter. It’s just the two of them. Joe hasn’t let Nicky out of his sight since they left London, had sat so close in the back of the car as Andy drove and Nile navigated that the handle on the door had dug painfully into Nicky’s side for the entire drive. Nicky can’t bring himself to mind. Not after everything that has happened in the past few days.

Whenever he closes his eyes, he can see gas filling the room, hear the bang of the grenade going off, see Joe sway and stumble and then fall to the ground. Too far away for him to do anything but stagger towards him desperately until the gas flooded his lungs and he too fell, still metres away from where Joe was sprawled.

Joe turns at the wall and begins to pace back towards the small kitchen where Nicky is sat. His eyes are trained on the floor, his hands in fists by his sides. Nicky sets his mug down on the table with a quiet click. “Are you hungry?” he asks quietly. “There is some food here. I could put something together.”

Joe looks up at him. “I’m fine, thank you,” he says. He continues pacing.

Nicky watches him, wrapping his hands back around the mug more for something to do with them than for any remaining heat left in the ceramic. The tea has long since gone cold.

“Joe,” he says eventually, when Joe turns back and begins another line. “You’ll make yourself dizzy, if you keep doing that.”

Joe shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter.”

Nicky drums his fingers against the mug. “Joe,” he says softly.

Joe grinds to a halt. He stands there, staring down at the carpet. One foot nudges the corner of the carpet to flip over, the ragged tassels flopping against his shoe. A flick of his toe, and it falls back into place.

“One hundred years isn’t enough.”

Nicky sets the mug down. “We agreed that it was,” he says slowly. “We agreed- I know that you are still angry with him, but-”

“There’s no _buts_ ,” Joe says, his voice sharpening. “He betrayed us, Nicky. Booker betrayed us. He was family and he just-” He cuts himself off, looking away again. “One hundred years isn’t enough. It’s not enough.”

“What else are we going to do?” Nicky asks. “He _is_ family. He still is.” He rubs his hand over his face. He’s so fucking tired. “There are so few of us, Joe. Andy is mortal now. I’m not losing him as well.”

“You-” Joe turns towards him, hands balled into fists at his side. “We trusted him. We found him and we took him in, we made him family. I was watching the fucking football with him when they took us, when I saw him take a grenade to the stomach. When I woke up in that van? I couldn’t work out why they had left him behind. They knew who we were. They knew that we could not die. Why wouldn’t they take him as well, unless he hadn’t started healing? Unless his immortality had run out?” He turns away again, spitting out a curse. “Turns out he wasn’t the one I should have been worried about.”

Nicky gets to his feet, the chair scraping against the flagstone floor and making him wince at the sound. “Joe,” he says again. “He was- he was suffering. It’s not an excuse for what he did, but he was- he was right, Joe. We’ve always had each other, from the beginning. Just the two of us, no family to leave behind. It took us years to find him. Years being on his own, dying over and over again and not knowing why. And then his family…”

“And that makes it okay?” Joe asks, his voice harsh.

Nicky shakes his head. “It makes it understandable, love. I’m angry with him too. But I’m not losing him, not forever.”

“You’re angry?” Joe scoffs. “No, you are not. You are always incapable of staying angry.”

“You think I am not angry at him?” Nicky asks. A flash of hurt skitters through him at the look on Joe’s face. After centuries, he knows how to read him so well that sometimes he thinks there are no secrets between them. “What do you think I thought, when I found out? Do you think I am soft enough to just forgive him, like that? Or were there more important things going on, like Andy _bleeding out_ in front of us?”

“That’s not what I meant,” Joe protests, but it’s weak and they both know it.

Nicky scoffs. “We both know that it is.” He leans back against the table, suddenly just exhausted. He’s so fucking tired of this, of trying to fit everything together into its new place in his head, of watching Joe pace and silently rage at Booker’s betrayal and being able to do absolutely nothing about it. “He was hurting, Joe. People make stupid decisions when they are hurting.”

“I don’t _care_.” Joe stalks closer, close enough that Nicky can see the lingering panic still in his eyes that hasn’t left, ever since he woke up in the back of that van and turned to see Joe right there with him, as always. “I don’t care that he was hurting!” Joe snaps. “I don’t give a fuck about him.”

“You do,” Nicky says quietly. “He is family.”

“ _He sold us out_.”

Joe’s voice echoes through the small farmhouse. Nicky involuntarily recoils. “He sold us out,” Joe repeats. “He looked at us, at his _family_ , and he decided what? That we were an acceptable exchange? That what happened to us didn’t matter, as long as he got what he wanted? We were going to be _lab rats_ , Nicky. Locked away and endlessly experimented on. He knew that, he fucking knew that would happen. And he still did it.”

“Joe, stop it,” Nicky says sharply. “You know that’s not true. You know he didn’t mean for it to go so wrong.”

“Have you missed the part where he sold us out?” Joe replies. He folds his arms and stares Nicky down. “Why are you defending him? You were _tortured_ because of him. Because of what he did. He doesn’t deserve any fucking forgiveness.”

“I suppose only someone too _soft_ would think of trying to forgive him,” Nick snaps back at him. Joe opens his mouth to say something, but Nicky cuts him off. “Don’t pretend like you didn’t mean it at the time, and don’t lie to me, else we are really going to have a problem.”

“I’m not the one in all of this who lied,” Joe says darkly.

“There are no sides in this,” Nicky snaps. “Stop trying to make it into a fight.”

“Isn’t that what we do?” Joe asks. “Isn’t that all we ever fucking _do_? We fight, and we die, and we fight again, and now Andy is mortal and Nile just wanted him to fucking apologise, like that would fix everything, like anything can make this right.” He looks away first, turning away and taking a few short steps before he seems to run out of steam and stutters to a stop. “You should not defend him. He sold us out. It was because of him that you were hurt.”

“I am not defending him!” Nicky shouts, stepping forwards until he’s nearly toe to toe with Joe. “I am trying to understand why someone that we loved, that is family to us, was desperate enough to do what he did, and I am trying, for the love of God I am _trying_ , to work out where the fuck we went wrong- where I went wrong, that he thought this was the only fucking option!”

“This is not your fault!” Joe snaps, his eyes dark. “This is Booker’s fault, and his fault alone. This has nothing to do with you and your fucking martyr’s complex.”

“Fuck you,” Nicky spits. “It has everything to do with us. With _me_. He is _family_.” He leans back away from Joe, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “Or did you never even believe that of him?”

Joe stares at him for a long moment, hurt visible on his face. “He sold us out,” he says eventually, his voice quiet but firm. “He nearly took you away from me. And I will never forgive him for that.”

Nicky shakes his head. “I can’t talk to you whilst you’re like this.” He turns away and heads for the kitchen door.

“Where are you going?” Joe calls after him. Nicky doesn’t answer as he shoves the back door open and heads outside.

0-o-0-o-0

Nicky glances up at the sound of footsteps. Nile approaches, her chin tucked into her jacket against the wind now whipping up the valley. “Can I sit?” she asks.

Nicky gestures at the rest of the bench he’s sat on, looking out across the moors. He can just make out a herd of ponies wandering across the opposite hills, silhouetted against the ridgeline. There’s a rustle as Nile sits down next to him and leans into the corner of the bench.

“So,” she says. “Andy said I should just stay out of it and wait for you and Joe to inevitably make up, that it’s obviously not the first time you’ve argued, but I’ve known you for literally three days, so if you want an outside perspective or something…”

Nicky huffs the barest of laughs. He sits up and wipes at his face with the back of his hand, wetness smearing across his cheeks. “Oh,” Nile says softly. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Nicky murmurs. A couple more tears spill down his cheeks without his permission, and he shakes his head. “I’m just tired.”

Nile hums. “The type of tired like you need to get some sleep and everything will be fine, or the type of tired that isn’t fixed by a few hours of rack time?” Nicky looks over at her, but she just steadily meets his gaze. “What did you fight about?”

Nicky raises one shoulder in a shrug. “Nothing.” He hesitates. “Booker,” he admits. “What he did.”

“Yeah, I figured,” Nile says. “I know I only knew him for about a day, but it’s still…that was shitty. And it must have been even worse if you’ve known him for so long.”

“Joe thinks a hundred years is too little,” Nicky mutters. He winces as soon as he says that, a small part of him thinking that even saying that is betraying Joe’s confidence. “He…it’s nothing. It’s fine.”

“If you say so,” Nile says, sounding unconvinced. She turns and looks out across the valley, letting out a long breath. “It’s pretty here. Andy and I saw a herd of ponies just wandering past up the track as we checked the perimeter, not even bothered by us.” She tucks her jacket securely around her. “Could do with a bit less rain, though. Some more sunshine. Less mud.”

Nicky stares out at the hills spreading out in front of him. The wind cuts through his thin shirt and he shivers, rubbing his hands down his arms. “He was right.”

Nile glances over at him. “Who?”

“Booker.” Nicky sits back on the bench, feeling the rough wood planks dig into his back. “I’ve always had Joe. Always. Booker was on his own. I don’t know what that could be like.” He rubs his hands down his thighs. “I don’t ever want to know what that might be like,” he says quietly. “Joe is…without him, I would have so little.”

He sees Nile nod out of the corner of his eye, but she doesn’t say anything. Nicky rests his head back on the bench and stares up at the clouds scudding overhead. “I’m just tired.”

“Andy is saying we probably need to lie low for a while,” Nile says. Her voice is strangely soft, and Nicky can’t quite work out exactly why she’s talking like that. In the few days that he has known her, she doesn’t really seem the type to ask quietly when yelling can work. “Once it’s safe to get out of the country, we can go somewhere else. Somewhere warmer, maybe. Keep our heads down for a while and just take a break. That sounds good, yeah?”

Nicky breathes out, and stares up at the clouds. “I keep wondering where I went wrong.”

“Where you…you mean with Joe?”

Something in Nicky violently rebels at the idea that anything he chose with Joe was wrong. “ _No_ ,” he says quickly. “God, no, never. No, I- with Booker.” He feels a few more tears slip down his cheeks, and doesn’t bother to wipe them away. “He wanted it to end. He wanted to die, to really die. He thought that selling us out, that letting Joe and I get captured and tortured, was the only option left.”

“Desperate people do really stupid things, sometimes,” Nile says quietly. “I know I only knew him for a couple days, but I’m pretty sure he did consider you all family. And by some twisted logic, he thought that what he did was the best option. The only option.”

Nicky breathes out. “What did I miss?” he asks, staring out at the hills. “Why didn’t I see this coming?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I should have known,” Nicky murmurs. “I should have seen how bad it was for him. How desperate he was. I just…I guess I assumed that he understood that we cannot die.” He turns to her. “You understand that, right? You _cannot_ die. Until this gift leaves you, it is impossible. There will probably be a point in the future where you want to, where you actually seriously consider giving up and just letting yourself die, and it will not work. It doesn’t work.” He searches her face, a sudden panic overcoming him. “Please tell me you understand that.”

Nile’s eyes widen, and she schools her expression a moment too late. But she nods. “As best as I probably can at the moment.” She studies him in turn. “Have you ever…”

“Tried it?” Nicky looks back up at the sky. That panic has left as abruptly as it arrived, giving way to exhaustion. “No. Thought about it?” He pauses. “A few times,” he says quietly. “When things were…particularly bad. Years of endless fighting with persecution as a reward, or plagues where we could do nothing but watch people die. But then I always have had Joe beside me. Always.” He wipes at his cheeks, blinking back more tears. He’s not sure why he’s still crying, only that they keep spilling out down his cheeks and falling onto his jeans, dark spots across the fabric. He’s so tired.

“It’s not your fault,” Nile says slowly. “Booker betraying you like that.”

The barest of smiles curls Nicky’s lip, without his permission. “Betraying us. You’re a part of this now as well, Nile.”

“Then I get a say in whose fault it is,” Nile says firmly. “And it isn’t your fault. It isn’t Andy’s, or Joe’s. Booker gave you up to Merrick, and that lies with him. You couldn’t have seen that coming.”

“I should have known,” Nicky just says quietly, staring up at the grey clouds overhead. “I should have been…better.”

“Bullshit.”

Despite himself, Nicky huffs a weary laugh. “Okay, then. Care to explain why?”

“Because you are not responsible for other people’s decisions?” Nile says. “Let me put it this way. Andy is the leader of this team. She has some responsibility for all of us. Is it her fault that she didn’t see how…how desperate Booker got?”

“No,” Nicky says immediately, frowning at the thought of blaming Andy for this. “Of course not.”

Nile nods. “Then why the hell is it your fault?”

Nicky walked right into that one. “Andy said you can take things personally,” Nile continues, casually ratting out their leader, “and I know this is all kinds of fucked up, but I seriously don’t think it’s your fault for not noticing what Booker probably put a lot of effort into hiding from all of you. For whatever that’s worth.”

“It’s worth something, Nile,” Nicky says softly. He wipes at his cheeks with a sigh. “It’s worth something.”

“So, you and Joe will be good?” Nile asks.

Nicky huffs a laugh. “We’re always good,” he tells her. “I’m not angry at him, not really. I can understand why he would not forgive Booker for what he has done. I’m just..”

“Tired,” Nile says. “Yeah.”

Nicky stares out across the valley. The ponies have moved on to new pastures, and he can’t see them anymore. He watches a buzzard hover high above a field, locked in on some morsel of prey. “I cannot imagine what I would do if I did not have him,” Nicky says quietly, watching the sky. “I’ve tried, before. When Quynh was lost, I tried to imagine if it had been him. And I knew then that it would break me.”

“Does he know that?” Nile asks softly.

Nicky just nods.

There’s the sound of a door opening, and then careful footsteps across the grass. “Joe is coming over, with what looks like tea,” Nile says as she glances over her shoulder. “I can tell him to go away?”

Nicky snorts, and shakes his head. “That is a nice gesture, but it’s fine.” Tea means he’s wanting to talk, not try and pick another argument. And Nicky can’t find any energy to be angry at Joe, if he ever was. It’s just not worth it.

“I made tea,” Joe says as he gets closer, his voice just that little bit uncertain in a way that makes Nicky’s chest ache. Joe comes around to the front of the bench, takes one look at Nicky, and his face just falls. He hurries to put down the mugs of tea on the grass and then drops to his knees in front of Nicky.

“Nicolo,” he says, his hands hovering like he doesn’t know where to touch him first. “Nicolo, my beloved.” His hands cup Nicky’s face, thumbs brushing tears away from his cheeks. “I am sorry, my love.” He studies Nicky’s face, eyes giving away the panic as he stares up at him. “Nicolo?”

Nicky drops his head into Joe’s hands and he takes a heavy breath, tears spilling out and running down over Joe’s hands. Joe makes a wounded noise and then Nicky’s head is pressed against Joe’s shoulder, Joe’s hands running through his hair. “Nicolo,” he says softly as Nicky just shuts his eyes and breathes. “What is wrong?”

“He thinks that Booker’s betrayal is his fault for not noticing how desperate he had gotten and not somehow magically fixing that,” Nile says. “Which is complete bullshit, of course, but it might get through if you tell him.”

“Traitor,” Nicky mutters, turning his head just enough to see Nile giving him a pointed look.

Hands cup Nicky’s jaw and Joe pulls back enough to look him in the eyes. His eyes are wet as he searches Nicky’s face. “This was not your fault,” he says clearly. “You are not to blame for Booker deciding what he did. You are the kindest man I know, and I love you for it. I am sorry for doubting that.” He smooths his thumbs across Nicky’s cheeks. “And I am sorry for getting angry when you first suggested that you were at fault and I ignored it. You do not deserve to think of yourself like that, but I should not have become angry at you.”

“I know that you cannot forgive Booker easily,” Nicky says quietly. He shakes his head. “I can just- I can see so _easily_ how he did what he did. I can’t forgive him for hurting you, but I can understand why he made that choice. I am sorry that I can.”

Joe shakes his head. “No, Nicolo, you do not have to be. That is who you are.” He drops his gaze for a moment, staring down at the grass. “I was scared,” he says quietly. “In that lab. They were going to lock us up and keep us like…like specimens, put away in a hole and never let out to see the light of day.”

“We would have been together,” Nicky replies. “We can manage anything together.”

Joe shakes his head again. “They knew what we are to each other. They would have separated us. They would have taken you from me and I would not have known where you were, what they were doing to you, whether you knew that I was fighting to get to you with every breath. I could not have taken that, my love.” He rises up on his knees and tilts Nicky’s head down to press a kiss to his forehead. “That scared me more than anything.”

Nicky hadn’t even considered that. He feels sick to his stomach at the thought that if Nile had not been there, he could have been locked away to be tortured and experimented on alone, away from his family, away from Joe. Fresh tears spill over onto his cheeks without him meaning to. “I would have known,” he says as Joe wipes them away. “I would have done the same. You know I would have done the same.” He takes a breath, and some of the heaviness wrapping around his throat eases. “And I am sorry too.”

“You two really are awful at fighting,” Nile says from her spot on the bench. “It’s terrible. No entertainment.” Joe’s chest rumbles with laughter, and Nicky feels a smile curl his lips.

“Sorry to disappoint,” he murmurs.

The wind picks up again, and Nicky can’t help but shiver. Immediately Joe is shrugging out of his jacket and slinging it around Nicky’s shoulders, muttering about how he can’t even dress properly, that he should know better by now how terrible English weather can be. “Welsh,” Nicky corrects, burrowing into the coat and inhaling the scent of Joe ingrained in the leather. “We’re in Wales, not England. They get angry about that mistake here.”

Joe gets up and sits on the bench next to him, wrapping an arm around Nicky’s waist. “The tea is probably cold,” he says abruptly, looking down at the mugs nestled in the grass. “I can make more.”

“We can just microwave them,” Nile offers, and Nicky instinctively cringes. Joe laughs, tugging him closer into his side.

“Blasphemy,” he murmurs in Nicky’s ear.

Nicky can’t help but laugh, but it’s wet and choked up, his breath hitching slightly. Joe rests his cheek on the top of his head, one hand rubbing up and down Nicky’s side. “What is wrong, _habibi_?” Joe murmurs.

There’s a rustle as Nile gets up from the bench. She picks up the mugs and heads back inside, giving Nicky a reassuring nod as she leaves. Nicky rests his head on Joe’s shoulder and breathes in the achingly familiar scent of him, unchanged underneath the sweat and blood and cordite from the first time he threw his sword aside and waited for a blow that never came.

“He wanted to die.”

Joe says nothing in answer, though Nicky feels him nod. “Booker wanted to die. He really wanted to die. And he couldn’t.” He swallows heavily. “And if he doesn’t- I can’t know…”

“Ah,” Joe says quietly. “Intent.”

Nicky can hear in his voice that he’s understood. Of course, he has understood. They’ve talked about this before, many times, when one of them took a little too long to come back from a death or they were reminded in some way that there was a limit on this gift that they have been given. “I’ve always believed it came down somehow to intent,” he says. “But if Booker-”

“It doesn’t mean anything,” Joe says firmly. “You and I will go together, many centuries from now, and I will laugh at you when you go grey and you will indulge me when I finally need a cane to walk and am pissed off about it, and we will grow old and go together. That is how it will be. That is the only way I will let it be.”

“You will fight God over this?” Nicky asks, a small smile curling his lips.

“If he takes you from me, I will find Him and I will make Him regret it,” Joe says, his voice low. He presses a kiss to the top of Nicky’s head. “But that is centuries away, beloved. We have time.”

“I know,” Nicky murmurs. He stares out at the valley falling away in front of them. The hawk circles once overhead and then flies off, in search of more prey. “I’m just…tired.”

“Yeah,” Joe sighs, and presses his cheek to the top of Nicky’s head. “I know, love. I know.”

0-o-0-o-0

By the time they go back inside, both of them shivering at the wind, Andy has managed to make a passable stew with whatever was in the cupboards and is serving it up. She takes one look at them and sets down the bowl in her hands. “Nicky.”

Nicky rubs his hand over his face. “I’m fine.”

Andy arches a brow. She steps closer and cups his face with both hands, tilting it up to look straight at him. “Don’t beat yourself up about this,” she says firmly. “This was not your fault.”

“I keep telling him that,” Joe says fondly, his arm still wrapped around Nicky’s waist. “But I love a stubborn man.” He eyes the food on the stove as Andy nods and steps back, Nicky letting out a breath at her obvious decision not to push. “Are you sure that is edible?”

“I supervised,” Nile says from where she’s putting out cutlery at the table, like this is just a normal meal. “It’s nothing fancy, but it’ll do.”

Dinner is a quiet affair. Nicky listens to Nile talk, Andy answering her questions about what they are going to do now. Joe stays mostly silent, eating quickly. With the amount of times they have all died in the past few days, they’re all starving. Occasionally his hand falls onto Nicky’s thigh under the table, a reassuring weight. Nicky covers his hand with his own and holds on, even if it makes scraping up the last of the stew that much harder.

The wind is battering at the cottage windows, the sky rapidly darkening outside, but inside it’s warm. Nicky gets a fire started in the grate, coaxing tinder to light and feeding it kindling until it catches. There’s something reassuring about it, watching the flames grow steady and lick up the sides of the larger logs that he props up over the kindling. His hands know how to coax the flame bigger without thought, when to add another log or blow air in at the base to make the embers flare bright and the fire swell upwards. He’s done this thousands of times.

There’s the sound of footsteps and then Joe sits down next to him, handing him another log. “Bit different from those first campfires in the desert.”

Nicky glances over at him. “We can understand each other,” he says with a smile. “I know more than four words in Arabic this time.”

Joe hums, tilting his head back to look up at the dark beams across the ceiling, though Nicky knows that isn’t what he’s seeing. “When you spoke in Arabic to me, I thought my heart might stop in wonder,” he murmurs. “I first loved you when you first called out to me to stop in my own language.”

“I think you were just so confused by how terrible my accent was, that you forgot to run me through,” Nicky says, knocking his head against Joe’s shoulder as he leans into him. It’s a familiar line, one he has said many times before, and it settles something in his chest.

“Nonsense.” Joe slips an arm around him. “I remember what was in my heart. It was love, I am sure of it.”

Andy snorts as she walks past. “Adorable, if this wasn’t your favourite disagreement over how you met.” She hands them a stack of blankets. “As it has apparently been decided for me that I have to sleep in one of the beds, and Nile is already passed out in the other, I guess that leaves the sofa for the two of you.” She studies them for a long moment, the bruises on her face in stark relief in the firelight. “You good?”

“We’re good,” Nicky says, leaning into Joe.

Joe nods, tilting his head back to look up at her. “Night, boss.”

There’s a small smile on Andy’s lips. “Night.”

The cottage creaks as it settles around them. Joe gets up and pushes the slightly ragged sofa closer to the fire as Nicky sets another log on it. They settle in front of it on the floor, leaning up against the sofa and watching the logs crackle as they are slowly consumed by the flames. Joe is a solid warmth beside him, one of his legs draped over Nicky’s. Nicky rests his head down on Joe’s shoulder and Joe wraps an arm around him, running his fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck. “What’s the expression?” he murmurs. “Money for your thoughts?”

“Penny for your thoughts,” Nicky corrects. He watches one of the logs, blackened and charred, finally succumb to its own weight and fall, sending up a shower of sparks. “Not much. Just thinking about Booker. About all of this.” Joe tenses slightly, just for a moment. Nicky turns enough that he can see the side of Joe’s face, lit by the fire. “I am not expecting you to forgive him,” he says. “I would not ask you to. I’m just…thinking.”

Joe’s fingers resume their lazy running through Nicky’s hair. “You are the most compassionate man I’ve ever known,” he says quietly, not looking away from the fire. “Sometimes, I think it still surprises me how much you can care.”

Nicky watches the flames. “Sometimes I think it a mistake.”

“Never,” Joe says immediately, his voice fierce. He takes a breath, his shoulder lifting and falling under Nicky’s cheek, and then his voice softens. “No, Nicolo. It is never a mistake. It is not. You have seen the good that we have done now, there on Copley’s wall. I could not have done half of that if you were not there to ground me, to remind me to be kind.” His hand brushes across the nape of Nicky’s neck. “I could not have done any of this,” he says, quieter now. “Not without you beside me. It is what makes this a blessing.”

Nicky has to swallow a few times before he thinks he can actually manage to form words. “Nile is right, you know,” he says, his voice rough. “We are terrible at fighting.”

Joe tips his head back and laughs. “We’ve had nine centuries to practice and yet we are still utterly useless at having an argument.” He leans over and presses a kiss to the top of Nicky’s head. “I prefer it that way, I think.”

Nicky nods. He leans his head into Joe’s solid warmth and watches the fire. “I’m tired,” he murmurs.

Joe’s grip tightens on him, just a little. “Then we will get some sleep, yes?” he asks. He pulls away, getting up and tugging Nicky with him onto the sofa. Nicky lets himself fall back to lie on the length of the sofa, feet tucked up so they don’t hang off the edge, and Joe crawls into place behind him. He wraps an arm around Nicky’s waist, holding him close as he grabs a blanket and spreads it over them. “We have to keep our heads down for a while,” he says, his voice a low murmur. “Maybe we should go and do that in Malta. Take a few months, just the two of us. Go back to the farmhouse on the hill, with the olive groves, far away from any tourists. I’ll bring a sketchbook, it’s been too long since I last filled one with you, and you can charm all the old ladies into providing us with fresh fruit.” He presses a kiss to the back of Nicky’s neck. “Finally get some sleep.”

Nicky sinks back into Joe’s hold. “I love you,” he murmurs. There’s no other way he can say it.

He feels another kiss to his neck, Joe’s lips feather-light against his skin. “I have been told I am very lovable,” Joe says. “Unfortunately, my heart belongs to one, and only ever one.”

“He’s a lucky man,” Nicky murmurs as his eyes begin to slip shut, the fire in the hearth blurring and then sinking into darkness.

“Yes,” Joe replies, just as Nicky slips into sleep. “I am.”

0-o-0-o-0

Nile checks the map in her hands and then looks up, shading her face from the sun high overhead. A dirt track winds up the side of a gentle hill, between ordered lines of gnarled trees that she thinks are maybe olive trees. There’s a house at the end of the track, looking out over the surrounding land, low drystone walls of white stone and sun-baked fields stretching out to rocky shores and then the sea.

She almost thinks for a second that she has the wrong place. When Andy had handed her a plane ticket and an address, she thought that she was going to find a safehouse, a small flat hidden in the middle of a town, or an abandoned warehouse on disused docks. Not this. Not a farmhouse that looks old but well-cared for, sprawling vines covering one wall and hanging down over a veranda where a figure sits, reading a book.

A small herd of goats wanders across the track, the bells around their necks ringing with every step. The figure looks up, and then waves. Nile waves back, hitches up her backpack and starts walking up the track.

Nicky greets her at the small iron gate that leads into the garden, half hanging off its hinges. “Nile!” he exclaims, sweeping her up into a hug. “How was Greece? Find any more statues of Andy?”

Nile had managed to snap a picture of Andy in a museum, next to an old statue with an uncannily similar profile. She’d sent it on to Nicky and Joe immediately, receiving a string of emojis that was obviously from Joe in return. It only took a few days with Nicky to learn that he has no idea what emojis are, let alone how to use them. “She caught onto it and stopped coming with me to museums,” Nile admits. “But I’ll get her again.”

Nicky leads her to the veranda at the back of the house. There’s a table there, a few books strewn over it and a vase of flowers that are wilting slightly in the heat. He stacks the books up and pushes them to one side, and then sticks his head around the door. “Joe, love?” he calls out, his voice echoing slightly inside. “Nile’s here.”

Nile slings off her backpack and sets it down against the wall as she takes a seat. She looks out across the garden that slopes gently down the hill, giving way to olive groves. “This place is beautiful,” she says, breathing in deeply. “Is it yours?”

“For the last few centuries.” Nicky sits down at the table. His hair is blonder than it was when they parted ways at the airport two months ago, bleached in the sun, a slight stubble dusting his jaw. “It was abandoned for a while, and then Joe and I fixed it up on some downtime. There’s a family or two in the village that have always tended to it whilst we’ve been gone.” He glances around, following her gaze out into the garden with a fond expression. “It’s a little precarious, compared to the string of anonymous safehouses and bad hotel rooms, but it’s worth it to have some sort of home that we can come back to when we need it.”

Nile nods. “That makes sense.” She studies the small pile of books on the table. They all look old, worn and well-read. One of them looks almost ancient, the spine obviously repaired in places. She tilts her head to read the inscription. “ _Le vite_ ,” she reads aloud.

“A series of biographies on Renaissance artists,” Nicky says as he leans back in his chair. “A friend of ours wrote it. Every so often I like to go through and remember the bits that he left out.”

Nile gently pulls it out of the pile and studies it, stumbling through the Italian on the front cover. “Wait a second,” she says. “This was written in the sixteenth century?”

“The height of the Renaissance.” Joe appears in the doorway, a bowl in his hands. His beard is a little longer, and he looks more relaxed than Nile has ever seen him, but the smile on his face when he sees her is the same. He sets the bowl down on the table and then pulls Nile into a big hug, lifting her off her feet. “It is good to see you,” he says when he sets her down. “You are just in time for lunch.”

“So, you knew the person who wrote this book,” Nile asks as Joe heads back into the house, dropping a kiss on the top of Nicky’s head as he passes. Nicky gives him a fond look.

“Joe and I spent a lot of time in Renaissance Italy,” he replies. “At the height of Western artistic endeavour. We were friends with many of the artists. Giorgio left us out of his biographies at our request, but we knew him well enough. Joe proofread a few of the biographies in there, I believe.”

“Michelangelo was a bore,” Joe says conspiratorially as he sticks his head round the doorway. “Never liked being around other people.” He winks at Nile. “Leonardo was much more fun. So many ideas, that man had, it was almost impossible to keep up with him sometimes.”

Nicky hums, tilting his head back so that he can see Joe. “You are still jealous, my love. Just because Michelangelo asked me to model for him that one time. I did turn him down, remember?”

Joe shakes his head. “Only one person can see you in all your glory, and it is not a crotchety miser who pissed off most of the people he met.”

“Should I be looking for you two in the museums as well, then?” Nile asks, leaning back in her chair. The sun is hot on the back of her neck, and she tilts her head back to feel it on her face.

Nicky laughs. “We walked into Renaissance Italy, an Italian and a Muslim as lovers who could spin such stories of the Crusades after a few bottles of wine. I believe that there are dozens of poems and paintings out there inspired by us.” He grins. “Andy was not pleased with our definition of laying low.”

“Though I was not too pleased with Tasso’s work,” Joe remarks. “Our love may have inspired him, but he could have taken the subject matter a little more seriously instead of including sorcery at every turn.”

Nicky rolls his eyes, catching Nile’s gaze and giving her a long-suffering look. “He believes that our tale is epic enough. I thought the sorcery was quite fun.” Joe flicks him in the back of the neck, Nicky not quite dodging out of the way fast enough. “Shouldn’t you check on the bread?”

Joe mutters something in Italian too low for Nile to catch, but it makes Nicky laugh. He captures Joe’s hand as he turns to go back inside, pressing a kiss to the palm. “We are being terrible hosts,” he says to Nile as Joe disappears back into what is presumably the kitchen. “Would you like something to drink?”

“Just water is fine.” Nicky nods, and gets up to head inside.

Alone out on the veranda, Nile turns to look out across the fields towards the sea. She can just make out a small village further down the hill, curved around the bay. A boat leaves the bay, cutting through the water and then vanishing around the headland.

There’s another book on the table, leather bound and with no inscription. Nile pulls it closer, flipping it open to the first page. Nicky’s face looks up at her from the page. He’s turned in half-profile, charcoal illuminating the bridge of his nose, the line of his jaw, the slant of sun across his cheek. It looks quickly drawn, like Nicky did not stay still long enough for lines to be smoothed out or more detail added, but it is it not rushed.

“Another thing I still remember from those decades in Italy.”

Nile looks up to see Joe leaning in the doorway, looking down at the sketchbook with a fond smile. “Nicky is often the patient one, out of the two of us, but somehow I took to the arts more than him.” He nods at the sketchbook. “I started that book as soon as we came here. It’s almost full, now.”

Nile flips through the nearly two months of drawings. Charcoal and pencil and the occasional splash of colour, sketches of the house she’s sat in front of now, intricate drawings of olive trees and Nicky, over and over again. “They’re beautiful,” she murmurs.

“I have an abundance of inspiration here,” Joe replies easily. He sets a loaf of bread down on the table. “But thank you.”

Nile glances through the doorway. She can just make out the kitchen in the dim light inside, rough stone floors worn through centuries of use. The smell of freshly baked bread makes her stomach growl, and Joe huffs a laugh at the sound. “It must take a lot to keep this place safe,” Nile ventures.

Joe shrugs. “In a way. But the people around here have been here for generations, and they are good people who do honest work. They make olive oil from our trees and graze their goats across the fields, and we buy fresh fish when the fishermen bring their catch in and pastries from the local bakery. And in turn, they keep an eye on the house and don’t ask too many questions.” He picks up his sketchbook and flips to a new page, pulling out a pencil. “It is grounding, to have a place that we can come back to,” he says as his pencil scratches across the page. “And Malta means many good things to us.”

Nile thinks back to that rickety cottage in the Brecon Beacons, coming back from a perimeter run with Andy to find Joe sat at the kitchen table, anger slowly subsiding as Nile had stood there and watched. Seeing Nicky sat outside and going to join him, to find silent tears running down his face as the wind whipped up the valley. The exhaustion dragging through his voice that had scared her, just a little.

“It seems a good place,” she offers.

Joe hums. “It is not a permanent home. We know that we will leave soon, that there is another mission to come. But I think it is better, that we are not here often. It is more special to us, to have these moments together away from the rest of the world when we need it.” He glances up at Nile, a small smile curling his lips. “We needed this, after Merrick and Booker and everything. I was angry, and my Nicolo was tired. Here, we can restore ourselves.”

“It sounds nice,” Nile says, and she means it. Joe nods, his concentration turning back to his sketchbook, and they fall into a comfortable silence to the sound of olive trees rustling in the breeze and the cries of birds overhead.

Nicky appears in the doorway a few minutes later, balancing a tray piled high with food in his hands. “Put the sketchbook away, love, lunch is ready. Swordfish steaks good with you, Nile?” he asks. “Caught this morning by Anard. They’re excellent with a little lemon.” Joe takes some of the plates from him, handing one over to Nile as Nicky sets out glasses and a jug of water that he had somehow not spilled a drop of. “So,” Nicky says as he sits down, hand skating over Joe’s shoulders. “How’s training been going?”

Nile fills them in on what she and Andy have gotten up to in the past two months as they eat, the training Andy has been putting her through, the insane ways she taught her how to fly a plane and a helicopter. “We’ll teach you how to crash them,” Joe says with a laugh when Nile describes the terror at Andy parachuting out and leaving her to land the plane on her own. “And don’t worry if it takes you a while. It took her a very long time to learn how to fly a plane.”

“We were all amazed at them when we first saw them,” Nicky adds. “Centuries of our feet never leaving the ground, and suddenly we are expected to fly thousands of metres up in the air? Andy was terrified the first time she took the controls of a plane, though she will never admit it. I could see her hands shaking around the controls.”

“I could feel yours shaking as you stared out of the window,” Joe adds, giving Nicky a fond look. “And you have never convinced me that you were just in awe at the view from so high up, so do not try it now.”

Nicky laughs, and leans across to kiss Joe. “Gross,” Nile says, making a face. “I take it that’s all you’ve been doing these past two months.”

“Be glad that you didn’t find my other sketchbook,” Joe says with an attempt at a leer. Nicky swats the back of his head. “We have kept ourselves busy,” Joe adds. “Enjoyed the downtime here.”

“Finally got some sleep,” Nicky says. His voice is soft, and when Nile looks up at him, he’s not looking at her. He’s looking over at Joe, his expression unbearably fond, and their fingers are laced together and resting on the table. Nile glances away, giving them a moment of privacy as she looks out across the olive groves and down to the sun glinting off the sea.

“Ready for more?” she asks after a few moments.

Joe grins. “Always.”

“But only after dessert,” Nicky adds, a grin on his face, and Nile can’t help but laugh.

**Author's Note:**

> Joe has absolutely lost many a sketchbook over the years because keeping track of your stuff when you've lived for nine centuries is hard, and there are definitely a few explicit sketches of Nicky from the Renaissance floating around museums that Andy won't let them steal back because the museums don't believe them when they say they're private property (and they always get weird looks if Nicky stands too close to the sketches).
> 
> Nicky is definitely the most empathetic of the group, and whilst that can be a good thing, it can also backfire like it does here. I have Thoughts about how immortality affects the way someone looks at the world and what sort of things they decide to value (I come from writing tolkien, so have had many years to think about these sorts of things), so there will most likely be more stories in a similar vein. Though the next one is probably going to be about the miracle that is indoor plumbing- which will hopefully make more sense when I write it?
> 
> As always, kudos and comments are much, much loved. I'm over on tumblr [here](theheirofashandfire.tumblr.com), where I'll probs be putting up snippets of wips as I write them.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Le Vite Podfic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29156058) by [perfectsymmetry18](https://archiveofourown.org/users/perfectsymmetry18/pseuds/perfectsymmetry18)




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